On Weapon Damage

The main complaint about weapons in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons is their simplicity, the lack of meaningful choice, and the existence of clearly "better" options than others of the same kind. "Where are the maneuvers for each weapon type that I can only do once per short or long rest for some reason?" one might ask, if they're, for example, a Redditor. When I think about the issues I have with weapons in 5e, however, I'm mostly weirdly bothered by the inconsistency of the damage dice.

Take the light hammer, for example. It's a simple melee weapon with the light and thrown properties. It has a range of 20/60 and it does 1d4 bludgeoning damage. Okay! But then there's the handaxe, a simple melee weapon with the light and thrown properties. It has a range of 20/60 and it does...1d6 slashing damage. Why?

Maybe that's just an anomaly. For example, the javelin is a simple melee weapon with the thrown property and it also does 1d6 damage! But it doesn't have the light property. I understand why it doesn't, but then why is the damage die the same? Shouldn't two throwable light melee weapons do the same damage? Shouldn't a non-light weapon do more?

It's not just simple weapons, either. Somewhat famously, the greataxe is a martial melee weapon with the two-handed property, which does 1d12 damage, whereas the greastsword and maul - also martial melee weapons with the two-handed property - do 2d6 damage. This doesn't seem like a problem - the damage range of the greataxe is 1 to 12 with an average of 6.5, whereas the damage range of the greatsword and maul is 2 to 12 with an average of 7 - until a player makes a barbarian and gets their Brutal Critical class feature. 

Brutal Critical allows the player to roll an extra die of damage when they roll a critical hit, which with a greataxe is an additional d12, but with a greatsword or maul, that's only going to be an extra d6. This particular problem is solved simply enough by ruling that Brutal Critical allows the player to reroll all of their weapon damage dice, not just one, but that doesn't cut it for me. I want the consistency.

Why does the rapier get to do 1d8 damage and have the finesse property when the humble war pick is stuck with 1d8 and no additional properties - not even versatility, which its alternatives, the battleaxe, longsword, and warhammer all get? Has any player ever used a war pick?

Using All the Dice

For my 5e games, I use a modified weapons table based on simple guidelines:

• To start, all simple weapons do d6 damage, and martial weapons do d8 damage.
• If the player character uses their Dexterity score to determine the attack roll and damage bonus, the damage die decreases by one (take that Dexterity!). This applies to ranged weapons like bows and slings, and weapons with the finesse property, like darts, daggers, rapiers, shortswords, etc. If the PC wields a finesse weapon but chooses to use their Strength score to calculate attack rolls and damage, the die is unchanged.
• Weapons with the heavy property have their die size increased by one. This applies to melee weapons like the greataxe, greatsword, and maul, but also ranged weapons like the heavy crossbow and the longbow.
• If the PC uses two-weapon fighting, light weapons they wield in either hand have their die size decreased by one (if you are dual wielding a dagger and a handaxe, for example, both weapons do d4 damage, rather than d6). This does not apply to characters with the Dual Wielder feat, who can use two-weapon fighting with weapons which don't have the light property.
• Weapons with the loading property have their die size increased by one. This applies to crossbows (and firearms if the DM allows them).
• Weapons with the reach property have their die size decreased by one. Optionally, the DM can rule that the die size decreases only if the reach property is used, so that if you attack with a glaive from only 5 feet away, the damage die remains unchanged.
• Two-handed weapons have their die size increased by one - this includes versatile weapons which are wielded with two hands, as well as heavy weapons. This means the damage die increases twice for heavy weapons - once for the heavy property, and again because the weapon necessitates being wielded with two hands.
• Die size increases and decreases stack, to a minimum of d4 and a maximum of d12. So a shortsword, which is a martial weapon and therefore starts at d8 damage, becomes a d6 if its finesse or light properties are used, but becomes a d4 if both properties are used simultaneously.
• As always, weapons with the special property (lances, nets, and I include blowguns here as well) are their own category and may have totally different damage die sizes and properties.

The Composite Bow

This system lays the foundation to introduce into 5e a weapon that is sorely missed: the composite bow (a Strength-based longbow or short bow). It's always made more sense to me for bow use in D&D to be tied to Strength, rather than Dexterity. I also love the original Baldur's Gate games, and the plethora of composite bows the player can give to the likes of Minsc, Kivan, and other incredible archer companions.

Using my system, the short bow is a simple weapon, so its die size is d6 to start. It uses Dexterity for its attack and damage rolls, so its die size decreases to d4. Because it's a two-handed weapon, the die size increases again to d6.

The longbow is a martial weapon, so its die size is d8 to start. It uses Dexterity for its attack and damage rolls, so its die size decreases to d6. Because it has both the heavy and two-handed properties, its die size increases by two, from d6 all the way up to d10. This is already more damage than it does in baseline 5e. I think this is a good thing because the longbow is a weapon that, as good as it already is in 5e, it still somehow feels underrated when you consider its historical significance.

The composite bows take this one step further. They're largely the same as the other bows, except they're special ranged weapons which use Strength to calculate their attack and damage rolls and require a Strength score of 13 or more (for a short bow) or 15 or more (for a longbow) to use. Because it uses Strength instead of Dexterity, the composite bow's damage die has one less decrease in size, allowing the composite short bow to deal d8 damage, and allowing the composite longbow to reach the maximum size of d12. 

Those who are concerned with balance might caution against allowing a ranged weapon to do the same damage as a greataxe, but unless those people are getting rid of features which allow spelllcasters to excel at range, like the Spell Sniper feat and the Eldritch Lance Eldritch Invocation, I'm not listening.

The Strength-Based Monk

A knock-on effect of this system is that I felt the need to retool monks slightly. I house rule that beginning at 1st level, monks' unarmed strikes and attacks with monk weapons deal d6 damage. If they choose to use their Dexterity score to calculate the attack and damage roll, the die size decreases to d4. This doesn't change the progression for Dexterity-based monks in 5e, but allows Strength-based monks to eventually reach a d12 martials arts die at 17th level.

Other monk abilities like Deflect Missiles and Unarmored Defense are unaffected - the tradeoff is that the monk player has to choose between doing more damage or being harder to hit.

My updated weapon list for 5e can be found here.